Page 38 of By the Orchid and the Owl
That, even though their assumptions were wrong, seemed obvious.
When Coen closed his bedroom door behind us, the thumping music faded.
“Where does that music even come from, anyway?” I asked, trying not to stare too obviously at the details of his room: a king-sized bed layered with dozens of fluffy, white pillows, a vast marble dresser in one corner, and an open archway to a private bathroom in the other—all lit by a single flaming lantern hanging from a hook on the ceiling. The glow of it made the room shimmer with shadows.
Coen folded his arms. His signature stance, it seemed.
“You burst with unexplained power, take a pill from a stranger, join the Wild Whisperers by attracting a magnificent white tiger to your side, get shoved against a wall by the greasiest bully I’ve ever seen in my life, and demand privacy with a dangerous Mind Manipulator all in your first week at the Institute, andthat’sthe first thing you ask? Where the music is coming from?”
I stared at him, waiting—though a small part of me whimpered at what he’d just said:dangerousMind Manipulator. He didn’t seem dangerous to me, but then again, I’d just watched him torture Fergus on dry land without lifting a finger.
“The music,” Coen said when it became clear I wouldn’t retract my question, “is part of a very complex Manipulating charm placed around this house. Anyone who comes near here—near the foyer upstairs, to be exact—will hear it. But it is not real. It’s all part of the imagination of the caster, who makes youthinkit’s real.”
“You said you’d stay out of my head!”
“I’mnot in your head. My buddy Garvis is. He’s the one who cast the charm.” Coen stepped toward me, and when I stumbled back, my ass hit the edge of his bed. “Next question. I know you have plenty. I can see them all brewing in your eyes.”
I refused to shudder at the thought that he was deciphering—correctly, too—the moods of my eyes.
“Do you have the same power?” I asked, deciding to skip the topic of the pills for now. “Do you have to suppress it, too?”
Coen bowed his head.
Now Ididshudder. For an entirely different reason.
“Are you and I the only ones?”
Coen grimaced. “No. But if you think I’m going to give you names and jeopardize anyone else’s safety, you can—”
“I don’t need names,” I said quickly. “That’s not what this is about. I’m just trying to figure out… how this happened. Where itcamefrom.”
“So am I,” Coen said. When my eyes flared, he added, “I know wheremypower came from, as well as the others’. I don’t know where yours came from, though. Which is exactly why I have a couple questions to askyounow, little hurricane.”
The way he said that nickname, soft but with the edge of that growl I’d heard the night before Branding, made my knees hollow. I sat deeper into the edge of his bed to steady myself.
“I’m not a hurricane.”
“Oh, but youwouldbe, without the pills.”
I only pursed my lips at him. “What do you need to know about me?”
“Well, you said you’re from a village named Alderwick, right? The one kind of near the Uninhabitable Zone? I looked into it, and it seems Alderwick’s about as far as you can get from the coast, save for Belliview and Bascite Mountain itself. So—who the hell are your parents?”
I blinked at him.I looked into it… as if he’d been researching me.
“Rayna?” Coen prodded.
“Fabian and Don,” I got out. “My parents are Fabian and Don.”
He sat down next to me, the bed sagging under our combined weight. I stiffened at the warmth of his body, afraid that if I let myself relax, I’d melt into him.
“Both men, then?” he asked.
“Yes.” I raised my chin, unable to keep out a note of defiance.
“And your mother? You don’t know anything about her? Who she is?”
The answer was no, but I hesitated. Images of that tarnished knife flipped through my mind. But beyond that singular weapon, which I still didn’t know anything about, Fabian hadn’t given any real details about my mother beyond the barest basics. I’d asked him plenty of times, and he’d always provided the same clipped response.
